


Après moi le déluge

by Renoku



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Crime Scenes, Detective Bunny, Detectives, EVERYONE - Freeform, Friends to Lovers, Graphic Description, Jackrabbit Week, Jackrabbit Week 2016, M/M, Murder, Mutual Pining, Mystery, Organized Crime, Pining, Teen Jamie, everyone has powers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-05-29 12:12:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6374272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Renoku/pseuds/Renoku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the domed country of Santoff Claussen, powers are commonplace.  However, there are some that are more dangerous than others, and when someone places a hit on you, you do what you can to survive.  Even if the man you love has thought you were dead for the past three months.</p><p>+++++</p><p>“You said it before you left.  I’d wanted to hear it then.  Because Jack,” Aster said, his voice as steady as the earth he stood upon, “I’d been prepared to hear you say it every day for the rest of my life.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Morning

**Author's Note:**

> The title is French to translate to, "After me, the flood." It's a saying used to represent the coming of chaos or the dismissal of the consequences of one's actions. Which is basically Jack. I mean, totally.
> 
> So this is definitely going to be part of a trilogy. PLOT TWIST THO: It's the middle installment! :D I'm so good at planning things guys.
> 
> Some information about this AU: Everyone has powers. Some of them are fairly obvious, such as Jack being cytokinetic and Aster being able to heal people. However, Aster has... other abilities. He's strange like that. Comes with being a Pooka instead of a human mutant like most other residents of Santoff Claussen. Jamie is an empath. Those are the relevant ones for right now.
> 
> In this AU, Santoff Claussen is a domed city comprised of several districts, including Burgess, the Warren, and the Venetian District, as well as others that will become more relevant as this comes together. It's kind of like a place where the world sends all "enhanced" people, although it's not really enforced. People just... go there.
> 
> As a final note, this is definitely a neo-noir, organized crime type of AU, so let's get ready to see Jack be naughty. ;)
> 
> Also, as usual, I do most of my writing unbeta'd. So if you see any mistakes, feel free to let me know in the comments.

He woke slowly as the sun rose over the city skyline. If he’d been asked, he wouldn’t have been able to say exactly when he’d become aware of himself, but it came after the last memories of his dreams had left him and before he’d opened his eyes. The morning entered through the window and settled at once, focused and heavy, in the corner beside the chest. From there it expanded. It seemed to fill the room with an amber glow, growing with age as slow as the sap of time.

When it reached the sheets they lit up in white fire. He felt his fur begin to warm against the cool linen. First his toes, then his legs and further up his body. It came across him like a breath of hot wind, aged from the past. It pushed through his fur flush against his skin, and, like a breeze, it lifted from him the weight of the sheets, only a fraction, and blew away the final covers of slumber.

His nose twitched. His whiskers quivered. Amidst the sea of soft white fire, he opened his eyes.

“...Damn.”

* * *

 

He’d been awake through the night. When asked, he’d said he knew nothing and he walked the other way. He avoided the patches of moonlight that broke through the buildings as he weaved through the alleyways in shadow. Barefoot, he did not run, but he kept his hood up and his head down, hiding away his hair and face from the exposure of the full moon.

The gravel cut like glass beneath his hardened feet, sharp and burning. The world was on fire, lit again by the moon. In his chest, his ice pulsed. It filled him with chill atop the molten ground, fought against the baking earth. It rushed through his veins, keeping his soul frozen and secure to his pounding heart.

He kept his breath steady.

Figures moved through the light, and he threw himself to the wall. Hot brick raked against his fingers as he waited for them to pass. Their height gave him pause; they were short, lower to the ground. Perhaps nothing – but no, he couldn’t take the risk. Fast in the approaching dawn, they vanished back into the steep shadows of the city. With a sigh of relief, he pulled away from the wall, leaving behind only a shock of white. Only pattern of ice in the shape of a hand, frightened into being, showed any sign of his presence.

It would be gone by morning.

By the time the sun began to break across the edge of the city skyline, he’d made it back across town. Here, it was safer, or as safe as it could be in Santoff Claussen. The slums of Burgess, they were, dominated by crumbling buildings and populated with the street rats to match. Or street bunnies, as the saying went – at least where Jack frequented.

It was his destination.

He knew the entire city better than his own mind on the best of days, but even then the surroundings of home gave him relief. Despite the familiarity, however, he kept his guard up. Fists clenched in his jacket pocket, ready for anything, because he never knew when—

“Jack?”

He lashed out, the blade of ice already half-formed by the time he brought it up to the boy’s neck. They both froze, adrenaline pumping through their bodies, one through sudden fear, and the other through pent-up paranoia after the night he’d just experienced.

“Jamie?”

Jack stared into the eyes of the boy, and almost immediately his anger disappeared. He flinched away, almost in shame, dropping the blade of ice. It melted to water before it even splashed on the ground.

“I’m, I’m sorry, I-”

“Jack?” Jamie asked again, “What’s wrong, what’s happening?”

He reached out for the man, even as he backed away, and grabbed his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Jamie, I didn’t mean to- I didn’t hear you coming and I-“

“Jack. Jack, I’m fine,” said Jamie. “Calm down.”

He took Jack’s arms in his hands, holding him still. “Look at me, Jack,” he said, “Look at me. Hey!”

The final shout brought Jack back to his senses, and their eyes met. As Jack stared back at the boy, the world seemed to grow brighter, only for a moment, and suddenly calm washed over his mind.

Jamie blinked, and he backed away.

“You alright?” he asked. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Jack collapsed back against the half-broken wall of the building behind him, and he let his breath return. Air felt like dust and dirt at it flooded his lungs, and he drank it like shadow. Hot, like the earth, and lighter than the heavy moonlight, he felt peace return. Jamie waited for him to speak, and when he did it came out cracked as ice.

“I- I was in the Venetian District. All night. Delivery.”

He heard Jamie’s sharp breath. “Were you seeing Pitch?”

At that, Jack let out a weak laugh. “No,” he replied, “And I almost wish. But no, I owed someone a favor. Groundhog.

“Groundhog? What were you doing with that sack of-”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m fine. It’s just the district; you know how it is. Like an Escher piece come to life. Set’s me on edge. I’m fine.”

“The monosyllabic repetition is really reassuring me to that fact.”

“No, really, I’m fine. I just need to get to Aster’s.”

Jamie didn’t seem sure. He crossed his arms and hugged himself, probably against the chill of the night, or perhaps because of the being before him, still slumped against the wall. His shoulders hunched up to his cheeks, and he looked off down the alleyway. Jack could hear the thoughts of empathy, at least in their nature.

“Alright,” he finally said. “Let me walk with you.”

Immediately, Jack began to shake his head. “No,” he said. “Go home, Jamie. Get Pippa and round all the kids together. Stay indoors.”

He pushed himself off of the wall, only to have Jamie grab his arm again.

“That doesn’t make it sound ‘fine’,” the boy said. “Jack, what’s going on?”

Jack shrugged out of his grip. “It’s nothing you need to worry about. I have to talk with Aster about it first, understand? Just stay inside.”

“Jack-”

“What part of ‘nothing you need to worry about’ don’t you get?”

“Jack, shut up.” Again, the world seemed to fill with a bright light, and the surge of anger disappeared from Jack’s tired mind. He let Jamie turn him around.

The white glow faded from Jamie’s eyes, as he continued, “If this is anything like what went down with Pitch, I just want to be prepared.”

“It’s not like that,” said Jack. “I promise. Aster just needs to know. And I don’t want to worry about the kits while I’m at it.”

“So what, do you want us to go to Warren?”

“No, just. Stay safe.”

“We always do.” Jamie looked Jack over once more before he seemed to come to a conclusion. He clapped the man on the shoulder. “Alright,” he said, “I’ll find Pippa and give her the word. You’ll know where to find this.”

Jack gave a tired smile. He gripped Jamie’s arm in return, and said, “Thanks, kid.”

“Of course.” He pulled Jack in for a hug, and the man breathed in the smell of family and home. He’d be a few days away from it, if this was as bad as he thought, so he tried to imprint it into his mind the best he could.

With the air of anxious conquest despite steadfast determination, they parted, their goals in mind. They said farewell, be safe, and then they both turned. Jack readjusted his hood, making sure it covered his hair, and slunk back into the shadows of the alleyway, avoiding the moonlight that burned like accusation upon the molten earth.

* * *

 

Aster entered his kitchen with a tranquil mind and a groggy, sleep-sick stomach. A gauze like cotton clogged his head, his eyes half-shut and his ears struggling to stand of their own accord. His fur was matted all down one side, and his now twitched curiously as he searched for the coffee. He shuffled over to the counter, his large feet plodding on the tile. He dragged his paws up to the cabinets as if hung from strings, limp except for where they dangled, shaking in the air.

The room was washed in amber, a tint of vintage sleep filtered over the cluttered morning.

As he drank his coffee, Aster leaned back against the counter and surveyed the mess of his kitchen. The permanent stains of paint splatters crafted their own work of art on the counter edges and scattered in patches across the floor. The small table in the corner held an abstract arrangement in miniature of dirtied mugs of stagnant paint water – which, despite the clear warning of “DO NOT DRINK” in bright red ink, he’d most certainly done so just the night before – and soiled, multicolored rags, hardened with the sharp burning smell of acrylic. His collapsed easel lay desolate in the corner. Dishes piled in the sink. Scraps of half-finished sketches poured onto the floor in a fountain of charcoal and parchment, black streaks smeared across the papers. On the wall, watercolor portraits dripped off of their pages where he’d pinned them up to work. Like melting lilies, they began blurred through a tree-sap lens and slowly came into sharp focus, outlined in thin, spiraled ink.

Aster watched the amber fade as the coffee entered his blood. A growl began to build deep in this throat, and he downed the rest of the drink as if it were something to burn in his throat. Instead, it only gave him a bitter recognition that yes, poor decisions were once again his forte.

His limited palette swirled through his mind; blue, white, purple, and black. As he came into full consciousness, with his paws tightening on the mug clutched in his hand, his ears came alive as well. They pressed flat against his head.

He knew better. He really did.

He turned away from the painting. He’d take it down later, after he’d eaten. Maybe after checking in with the office, see if there was a case. Or maybe after that case, if said investigation truly existed, as he suspected it did, as he always did when his ears felt cold on one side and his tail puffed up like a spout of anger, never from embarrassment, no, nor from shame, and certainly not because of certain paintings, no matter how detailed they were in their depiction of certain winter harbingers. So yes, he would take down the paintings eventually, of course he would, because why would he grace his walls with images of an overblown blizzard-bearer, no matter how witty, shocking, and completely captivating they remained even after these years of knowledge. Of course he’d take them down and put them with the others.

But first, breakfast.

Before he could begin to attempt any excursion for a clean bowl, let alone food, though, a knock came at the door.

Aster paused. A visitor this early, when the world was just beginning to turn from dream to color, grafted into the films of the era of sound past the vintage age? It’d been a few days; of the four people it could be, only one of them made sense.

He didn’t give the paintings on the wall a second thought as he made his way to the hall.

The small entrance to his apartment remained as dim as the morning around him. Each time he saw the doorway at the end, with it’s weathered, peeling surface, the spyhole centered in its body like a target, he couldn’t help the feeling of apprehension. The feeling of news, of expectation, the loss of comfort as he left his home. Would he come back this time? Would the others?

Would he ever see the man again?

Another knock sounded out, and this time came a voice. “Bunny! Wake up, Fluffbutt! We’ve got work to do.”

All pretense of caution flew out the door as Aster threw it open. There, leaning against the frame, in his blue hood and with hair as white as ice, was Jack.

“Morning, Cottontail,” he said. “I’ve got us a case.”

And with those words, he stumbled, and collapsed onto the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this writing! Now, to address questions about my other fics:  
> 1\. _Learning to Live_ is done. Kaput. Nothing else adding. I had an ending in mind, but where it is right now is actually a lot better. If you have any questions about that fic in particular, about what I _had_ planned or otherwise, feel free to ask in THAT comment section. Or this one, in which case I will tell you to please ask it over in the other comment section.  
>  2\. _The Clockwork Garden_ , that one is currently in the process of rewriting and finishing. I _will_ finish it. Unfortunately, I'm in the IB program at school as a senior, and it's actually literal hell. But final submissions for IAs are this week, so maybe not so much now? (It will be, sorry.)  
>  3\. My Sterek fics are on hold until I finish _everything else_ , but if you have questions, feel free to ask me about them!  
> 4\. Any other questions regarding other ideas for fics I've mentioned before, or current fics in progress, feel free to ask, and I'll answer ASAP. Unfortunately, this past year has been super busy, so I've been neglecting my writing because _school is terrible_. But that's a rant for another day.
> 
> Thank you all for reading! Please like/subscribe, and _please_ tell me what you liked about my writing, or what you think I can improve! I'm always open to suggestions and advice!  <3


	2. Murder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Largely unbeta'd because I'm actually really lazy. Also sorry, I don't really have an excuse for the lateness except finals week? And the IB program in general?
> 
> But yeah, if there are any errors, please let me know!

It took him a moment to realize what had happened. Jack’s body lay prone on the floor, the doorjamb lodged between his ribs and his armpit. His hair splayed out from his head like a crown of snow, melting into the floor. As Aster stared, the fabric of the man’s hoodie, the light, soft blue fleece and cotton, began to darken. From the center of Jack’s back, a dark blue stain began to bloom.

A dark blue rose on an amber morning.

It was the sight of the blood that shocked Aster into moving. Like a spark of electricity into his sleep-rusted limbs, gears creaked into motion before steam filled his senses.

Taking care of his back, Aster lugged Jack into the kitchen. The man wasn’t very heavy, he noticed. Despite the growing stain on his back, this fact worried him more. He’d have to make an extra bowl of porridge once he’d cleaned the kitchen, he thought to himself, his mind further away from the present than the prehistory of the coloring around him.

The wooden chair creaked with similar age as he draped Jack across its back. Aster cooed at it, easing the man so that his legs were spread as if on a saddle, arms hooked over the wood.

“Easy there, Jackie,” he said under his breath. “Let’s get a good look, yeah?”

With the distant practicality of an analyst, a professor of some conceptual art, completely objective in his focus, he gently lifted Jack’s sweater up his back. The fabric stuck a little, and when he had it bunched up under his armpits, he saw why.

A large wound scraped across the entirety of Jack’s back. It appeared to have been frozen over at some point, to stop the bleeding, and Aster cursed under his breath at the thought of Jack doing it without thinking, as he always did, without any regard for nervous damage or frostbite. Not that the latter was possible, but it was the only thought he gave the subject before he reverted back to his studious posture.

The wound looked to be a burn, the remaining skin raw and red, rising up on hard scars. With how it spread across his back in boiled patterns, Aster assumed steam. But that didn’t account for the jacket, which was relatively undamaged, bloodstains be damned.

This was a spirit wound, wrought by the powers granted to this small amber world.

Aster cursed again. The list of individuals he knew that could manipulate spirit compulsions like this was sparse, and he didn’t like the thought of any of them being responsible. Two of them did it through self-combustion, and only one of them regenerated. Unfortunate, for the other.

He had a good idea now about the case that Jack had found.

But priorities first; Aster set about mending the damage done to Jack’s back, conscious of the blood welling up across his skin. It seeped through the melting ice, and Aster knew that the numbed nerves weren’t helping any with the healing.

He let his paws soak in the blood. It felt heavy, like red ink weighing down soft parchment. The broken skin gave way beneath his touch, pressing further into the wrecked flesh. Gently, he felt out where the skin became ashen, broken beyond repair.

The layers were dead, permeated with blood that seeped through its thinness.

Aster’s world faded around him, as the color and focus flowed into his mind. He felt the amber energy pulse in his consciousness. It felt as soft as the morning, as slow as life. As he worked it, its color also faded.

It became evergreen, and life returned to his universe. From his mind it flowed in turn to his limbs, and he pushed it further down his arms. His paws began to glow, and a bright light filled the blood that spread across Jack’s back.

Soon, Jack’s entire spine was lit up with arcs of healing energy. The green strands of spirit magic ran through his bones, and in turn they connected the sinews to the skin, pushing past the blood and forcing it back into his veins. The seeping, welling tide of redness came to a stop, and, ebbing under the gravitational pull of Aster’s nature, it returned to its source. Like a receding flood, it trailed back through its forged tracks, and it filled Jack’s veins with the renewal of life.

It wasn’t until the skin started to mend when he felt the body begin to move. Immediately, his paw gripped the man’s shoulder.

“Stay still,” he grunted. “I’ve only just stopped the bleeding.”

“Jack groaned beneath him. “Don’t stop,” he murmured, his voice as soft as sleep and torn in his throat. “Feels good.”

A faint smile curled at Aster’s mouth. “You mad a real mess of yourself back here, Jackie. What’d you do, start a fire?”

Jack hummed softly, and Aster knew the man was smiling as well. “Not my style, Cottontail,” he said. “You know me better than that.”

He did. And he knew it wasn’t a fire. But still, he smiled, and he let his paws drift lower to the small of Jack’s back. His touch remained feather-light, his energy pulsing beneath the skin as it brought it back together.

“You’re a nuisance.”

“And you love me,” Jack said, with such a small carelessness that the words felt more like air then they sounded.

It was only for the briefest of moments that Aster hesitated, before he returned his paws to the broad of Jack’s back.

“You know me better than that,” he said. Even he could hear the bitterness in his voice.

Jack opened his eyes. Somehow, Aster knew that the smile had left his face. It was only then that Aster remembered his paintings.

“They’re nice,” Jack said.

A spark of green energy leapt from Jack’s spine. The two of them shouted in unison, the shock of spirit magic like painful electricity jolting between their bodies. The skin broke open again where the lightning spread across his back.

Aster leapt out of his chair, his powers buzzing beneath his skin. His paws were shaking; he felt the energy surging against him like a wound-up spring, ready to burst at the slightest trigger. His fur stood on end. Even still, small jolts of evergreen spirit electricity arced across the strands of his body like synapses connecting each hair to the next.

Jack sat up, concern in his eyes.

“Don’t move,” Aster snapped. He could see the twinge of pain there as well.

Without so much of a thought — because any thought, at this point, would set off the fireworks from his Core — he scooped up the empty, non-paint mug from the table — the electricity burst from his paw again, a flash of green light that ensnared the new extension of its host before dispersing into ether – and he opened the cabinet above the sink, set so low that it nearly met the mountain of dishes that obscured the kitchen window between them.

The amber light from the morning had faded, and as Aster opened the cabinet, it all concentrated into the shape of a whiskey bottle. Springwine, as sweet as the scent of violet with a bite of lilac underneath, tinted green as absinthe from the aged leaves, leaving behind a ghost of the summer yet to come and the swirl of gold within its glass. Thick enough to dull the senses, and just what Aster needed to calm the storm of healing spirit that threated to arc again.

Paws trembling, electricity sparking from his fur, he poured himself more than half a glass and downed it like a shot.

“Aster?” Jack was asking behind him. He heard the rest of the words as his mind came to, the burning in his throat shocking him back to focus. “Aster, what was that?”

“N-Nothing,” he stammered, gaining his footing. “Just a bit of shock, is all.”

“You haven’t lost control like that in years.”

Ah bombers, this was not the time for this conversation. Against his sparse and better judgment, he let the bottle tip another sip into his mug.

“You’d know that, right, Frostbite?” he asked, and lifted the mug to his lips. He sipped, this time.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Jack demanded, sitting straighter in his chair. (“Don’t move,” muttered Aster, but it went unheard.) “And you’re being mean.”

“That’s not fair.”

“How is that not fair? I’m the one who needs treatment—“

“And I’m the doctor,” Aster shot back. “I’ll treat my patients as I bloody damn well please, thank you, as long as it gets them better.”

“Tell that to the lightning bolt on my back!”

“Which was an accident.”

“A painful one!”

Aster said nothing as he downed the rest of his mug. The kitchen fell into tense silence, and he looked everywhere except at Jack.

It struck him in the back of his mind how uncomfortable he felt in his own home. It built upon him in a slow anger, like a rising heat not unlike the blooming drink in his stomach. In this sanctuary, solitary within the urban wasteland of the Warren, secluded from the rest of the Claussen by the exterior of ruin and abandonment, he should have felt secure. He should’ve felt dominant, in the gentlest sense of the word, instead of this lonely, lost footing he felt at the hands of a man who, being unable to walk at present, could bring him to his knees. He shouldn’t have felt this weak, cornered by his own powers as if he had one foot in a trap. It angered him, and it fermented his spirit until the electricity faded beneath his skin.

He didn’t pour himself another drink.

Instead, he spoke, and his voice came out something low, dangerous, deadly calm with the heat beneath his lungs.

“You’ve been gone three months, Jack,” he said. “Three full months.”

What killed him even more was how Jack’s eyes went soft. He hated that pitying look, how it tilted the man’s head, as if wondering absently, “This poor, saddened creature,” too distant from the ache he felt to truly understand. In his foggy state, he couldn’t tell himself to be reasonable. He couldn’t allow the confusion to adapt, to let itself be understood.

When Jack replied, it was with that same careful, distracted, analytical tone that he’d expected.

“You know why I couldn’t come.”

“No,” Aster said, shaking his head. “I know why you couldn’t stay. You never gave me a reason for dropping off the face of the earth.”

Jack scoffed. “What, did you think I’d left town?”

“I don’t know, Jack, that’s the point!” He was shouting, a sudden change that sped his words so that they slurred with his accent. “I didn’t know if you’d found a way out, if you’d changed districts – knowing you, you’d actually be able to find a way with how bloody brilliant you are. I couldn’t find any of the kids, and on the off chance I did, they couldn’t tell me anything. Hell, Jack, I didn’t even know if you were still alive!

“After the first month, I’d actually almost believed it, until I spoke to Jamie. He’s placed a tag on you, you know? That old one, from the Venetian job. He couldn’t locate you with it – it was too old – but it was still active. It’s the only reason I didn’t – I didn’t stop–”

He cut himself off when he felt the tears on his cheeks. He’d started pacing, the bottle of springwine sloshing in one paw, his heavy, frantic gesticulations contain within the mug in the other.

Jack tried to sit up in the chair, tried to stand. Aster saw him brace his feet against the floor out of the corner of his eye, saw the wince that passed over his features.

“Don’t move,” he heard himself saying, his voice catching on the words. He raised the paw that held the bottle to his eyes, and dried his tears on his arm. The fur became matted, his vision going amber and green through the glass, and he sniveled weakly. Pathetic; it’s how he felt, and the word echoed in his mind like a faint dream he’d had before, one that was never truly forgotten.

“It’s not your fault, Aster.”

“Yeah, I know that much,” he snapped. “I’m a damn good P.I., Jack. You just really didn’t want to be found.”

“If it counts for anything, I didn’t tell the kids where I went either.”

Aster sighed, his anger falling down his body like the cold ruins of sobriety. The flower withered in his gut.

“I figured that out pretty damn quick too,” he said, “when none of them could help me. I’m a damn good PI, Jack. I check my sources. You didn’t leave any.”

“I’m sorry.”

Jack stared at the floor, his blue eyes hardened like ice. Yet Aster could see the cracks, more than just how he hunched his back deeper than his injuries, and how his fists clenched around the wood. He refused to give in, though, to kneel down, to take his face in his paws and forgive him, to kiss those unshed tears away. That was off-limits; they’d agreed. He’d agreed. And for the past three months, he’d regretted that he hadn’t put up more of a fight.

That he’d made that choice.

“Why, though?” he asked. He cursed himself in his mind, but he needed to know. “Was I really that – was the thought of me – of us—“

“What?” Jack exclaimed, and he nearly fell out of his chair with the strain of wanting to stand. “Aster, no! You know that wasn’t the reason!”

“Then why?”

“You know why!” Jack shouted. The scent of new blood filled the air, the skin of his back tear from his movements. Aster gripped his bottle tighter, fighting the urge to make him sit again. “I – we were thinking of the kids, Aster. You know that, I told you! That’s what we agreed. We had to keep them safe.”

“I know what we agreed! But that doesn’t mean that we had to—“

“I had to, Aster,” Jack said. “I needed to protect you. I care about you too much to—“

“To what? You cared about me too much to stay?”

“No, Aster! I wanted to stay! You know this, I know you do! But after everything that happened with Pitch I... I didn’t want you or the kids in danger.” Jack paused, and Aster could tell in the way his body shifted, in how his breath hitched that was building up to something more.

“I... I like you, Aster. A lot.”

He could only let out a dry laugh in response. His heart fell to the ground with the bitterness in it, harsh as the drink he still held in his hand, and loose as his will to walk away.

“You can’t even say it.”

“I didn’t think you’d want me to.”

A will as loose as melting ice.

Finally, Aster raised his eyes from the ground. The room seemed to shift around him, and his body felt as if the air that touched his fur was nothing more than an illusion. It ballooned in his chest with his breath, filled him with a dumb courage fueled by the grudge lodged in his bones. He met the man’s eyes, Jack’s eyes, and he watched him look away with guilty shame.

“You said it before you left. I’d wanted to hear it then.”

His gaze was as intense as an emerald sun. In it showed the anger and the resentment, the betrayal of the past three months. He felt the jealously boil beneath the color, and couldn’t stop the ire that wanted to pour from his mouth like water.

Through it all, through all the darkness and the tar that darkened his eyes like a shadowed forest of ghosts, he hoped, and he hoped it showed.

“Because Jack,” he started, his voice as steady as the earth he stood upon, “I’d been prepared to hear you say it every day for the rest of my life.”

He held Jack’s eyes in his own as long as he could, never wanting to look away. At his words, he saw how they widened, saw how they fractured, and saw how Jack opened up further than he had since he’d arrived. Then Jack looked away, a small frown on his face, and not a word was said in reply.

And yet that look had been enough. He knew, then, just what he needed to do.

He sighed, and tipped the bottle of springwine to fill the drained mug in his paw. The barren clay wasteland became flooded with cold fire, drenched in the burning wave of poppies and dandelions aged beyond belief.

The green liquid turned dark in the mug, and Aster stared into it as it filled to the brim.

He glanced back up to find Jack’s eyes on him once again. His brows were furrowed, confused as he regarded the mug in Aster’s paws. The frown deepened. His eyes followed the bottle of springwine as Aster placed it back on the counter.

“Here,” Aster said, thrusting the mug under his nose. He startled, blue eyes reflecting the green alcohol like waves underneath a frozen ocean, washing away the dust of amber sadness.

He took the mug with both hands.

“What’s this for?”

“You’re gonna need it, mate,” Aster replied. He huffed a laugh, settling back down into his chair. “Sit down. No, not like – I need to see your back, Jack. You tore the skin again standing up like that.”

The tense anger, the anticipating argument and worry that lined Jack’s shoulders, it relaxed at Aster’s touch. Jack gripped the mug tight in his hand, took a sip.

“Well whose fault was that?” he asked, and Aster heard the forced smile in his voice.

“Oh, shut it,” Aster said, softer than the words themselves, “and stay still.” His paw reached blindly across the table, feeling out for the box. It was there, somewhere underneath his scattered brushes and torn pages.

“But why do I need the drink for this?” Jack was asking. “You’ll fix me up pretty quick with your powers.”

“I don’t think either of us are trusting those very much right now, Jackie,” Aster said. “I know I’m not.”

Jack looked over his shoulder, his emotions clear in his eyes. That was another thing Aster could never ignore, how plainly Jack displayed himself to the world, how brilliantly it shown through everything he did, and every expression on his face. That was what Jack did. He froze others, and he was captivating.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

Aster blinked, just as his paw gripped the worn, plastic edges of the box. He pulled out the first aid kit, the one that had clearly seen better days.

“It means that you might wanna down that glass quickly, mate. You’re not getting the spa treatment this time around.”

“Oh great,” Jack groaned. He lifted the mug to his lips, and then groaned harder, his voice suddenly rougher as he coughed, “Oh yeah, just peachy.”

Aster chuckled. “Drink fast, mate.”

He took the needle and thread in hand, and let his aura run over the length of the spool just once, just to make sure it was clean. Not that he didn’t trust himself, but in the past few months...

Focus, Aster.

“Is that kit always on hand?”

Aster could hear the nervousness in Jack’s voice. He spread his paw across Jack’s back, trying to will the tension away. How much easier this would be, he thought, if Jamie were here. The powers of an empath, able to soothe emotions and pain without even a touch; there was no danger of losing control.

None at all.

“More often then not,” he finally grunted, biting the thread clean in his hand.

He heard Jack’s hiss of pain when started, but the shame he expected to feel never welled up in his chest.

Punishment, in the lightest sense, came to both of them.

“Why,” Jack started, cut off but another grunt, “and why is that?”

“Why don’t you tell me how you got these scars?” Aster said, and yes, he was well aware of the subject change. Subtlety was an art, as was stitching up the man he loved.

But Jack didn’t call him out on it. Aster glanced away from his work to look at him, to see how he gazed icily at the opposite wall. He remained silent, and in his profile Aster saw how his eyelashes fanned across his cheekbones as he took another swing from the mug.

He paused in his movements as the shudder racked through Jack’s body. A moment later, he started again, waiting for an answer.

“The Groundhog is dead.”

If Aster paused this time, it was for less than a second. Of course, in this city of Santoff Claussen, little surprised him anymore. In this world where his touch brought life, and more dangerously, death; where children left chemical trails of a biological emotional spectrum, where sprites lived among men — no, Aster wasn’t surprised.

He said as much, and added, “The Groundhog dies once a year, Jackie. Kind of the point, I think.”

“It’s not like he wants to die.”

“Well he’s got a real knack for it.”

Honestly, the fact that the Groundhog didn’t actively try to die on purpose is what surprised him most. No one was that unlucky. They simply weren’t. It was only one of the reasons why Aster avoided the fur bomb; sure, there hadn’t been any reports of the Groundhog taking anyone with him when he bit the dust, but it was only a matter of time. If anything Punxy’s habit of combusting at the sight of a fly was an annoyance at best, but a potential nuclear catastrophe at worst.

By the looks of it, Jack was somewhere in between.

“Listen, mate, if him dying is what’s got you in a twist, just give him a month, right? Then he’ll be right back up and blaming you for his latest walk off the pier. May Charon welcome him home.” Aster tugged the thread a bit harder than he’d meant to, an apology already past his lips hen he heard Jack wince. “Anyway, I’m more pissed that he did this to you. All... protectiveness aside, it was inevitable that he’d get himself hurt.”

“Ah!” Jack gasped, gritting his teeth at the pain. “Glad to know you care.”

“We’ve been over that already today, Jackie. And I just past my booze quota for the week, so shut it, or I’ll tug harder.”

“Of course you’re into that.”

“I said shut it,” Aster snapped, but there was no real bite in his words.

He almost smiled. This is what he loved about Jack; the wit, the banter, the constant heat that never felt like fire. How he’d gone his entire life without this man he’d never know.

And yet that paranoid voice from the past three months whispered to him what he might soon relearn.

“In all seriousness,” he started again, quieter, “I hate to see you hurt like this.” When I can’t even help you heal. “Someone needs to tell the bloke to be more careful next time he’s gotta choose his dying ground.”

“It wasn’t his fault.”

The thread went taut. Aster froze, feeling the tension between Jack’s shoulder blades as it built like ice. Solid, fragile, and completely dangerous; blood seeped through the cracks where the stitches pierced the skin.

And then he realized the man was shaking. Not from anger, no. Not that biting cold that nipped like a breath of winter storm through Aster’s blood until he responded in kind.

No, this was thick, heavy, and it raised the fur on Aster’s arms like a storm of his own aura. It was that same response, only from Jack it was always more focused, more deadly, and sharper than any bolt of lightning.

It was the closest he’d ever seen Jack get to losing control, and he scented the cause as his whiskers twitched, the creeping frost in the air.

Fear.

He cleared his throat, and he chose his words with caution. “Well, of course not. It never is, isn’t it? Like you said, it’s not like the bloke wants to die. But if he were just more aware of his surroundings, or had some common sense, then perhaps—“

“He was murdered.”

And _that_. That was a surprise.

Aster lowered his paws, his ministrations on Jack’s wounds almost forgotten. He hovered, processing, unable to understand—

“Well,” he choked out. “That’s something.”

It’s not that no one _wanted_ to murder the Groundhog. But, well, _no one wanted to murder the Groundhog_. There wasn’t any point. If you killed him, he came back at the end of the month, with a near-guarantee not to die again until the next spring. The only people desperate enough to do that, well... you’d have to have some real anger to let off, or just be plain sadistic.

Not to mention the combustion.

And just like that, the dots connected in Aster’s mind.

“To make one thing clear first,” he started, “you know it wasn’t me, right?”

“Oh no, I definitely came here because I thought you did it. Have my recorder on and everything,” Jack snapped. “Try not to be an ass while you have a needle in my back. Or I’d have to charge you for medical malpractice as well.”

Aster ignored the sass. “But the killer wasn’t after Punxy, was he?”

“You call him Punxy?”

“They were using his spirit combustion as the murder weapon. But that means...”

Jack smirked, looking back over his shoulder. “And they would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for my meddling and surprisingly flexible ass.”

Aster was too shaken with his own fear now to even entertain Jack’s words. No sense of heat filled him, only the same cold frost that now permeated the world.

And fear made him angry.

He grabbed Jack by the shoulder, looking him in the eye.

“Who,” he growled, more animal than human. Lightning began to set his fur on end again, the green electricity sparking along his arms. He didn’t notice, too focused on Jack.

“Woah, calm down, Cottontail. You’re going a little supernova on me.”

“You get more annoying when you’re scared.”

“It’s a defense mechanism and you know it! Off! Off with the sparks, I say!”

He tightened his grip just a little instead. “Who was the target?”

“Me!” Jack exclaimed. “I thought that was obvious enough! No one else was in the area. What part of me being in hiding was not clear?”

Aster’s eyes searched Jack’s face for any hint of a lie. Not that there was any reason for there to be one, and he knew that in the back of his mind, but the rest of his remained too on edge.

Three months of losing sanity. Three months.

He let go of Jack’s shoulder, and the sparks died down along his arms. As he felt the static evaporate from his fur, he picked up the needle and resumed his work.

Jack groaned again, and Aster saw him reclaim the mug to his lips. “You’re a real piece of work, Aster.”

“Don’t remind me,” he grunted.

“I didn’t say I didn’t love it.”

“You never said otherwise either.”

Jack downed the rest of the mug, and it landed on the table with a hollow thump. He didn’t let it go though, his pale fingers tracing the rim, lost in his fog of thought. Aster wished he could see into that head of his, into that cold world that flashed between sarcasm and seduction on the flip of a coin. Like a spark of frost, Jack could change. Melt him down, and what was left?

Aster thought he knew. But that voice in the back of his mind told him otherwise.

“Do you forgive me?” Jack asked, voice quiet. He didn’t clarify what for; there was too much that they both had to sort out first.

Instead, Aster sighed. “That depends,” he said. “Do you know who’s after you?”

Jack shook his head. “That’s the second part of why I came to you. Besides the almost dying thing,” he admitted. “Like I told you, we have a case.”

Murder my heart, why don’t you? Aster thought to himself.

But he tried once again to focus, and he found his mind working further into the world.

“You don’t think it was Pitch, do you?” he asked.

“God, I hope not,” Jack said. “I can’t... After what happened, I don’t think it could be. We left him down there, Aster. I can’t see any way he could’ve gotten out.”

“There are still Fearlings, Jack.” And Christ, did Aster know that well. Fearlings, everywhere, and he knew where to find them.

Nothing ever did stay in your system as long as fear.

“Still,” Jack said. “I hope it’s not... I hope it’s not him.”

Aster felt the same, and he felt that hope in the same way. After what they’d done... Pitch deserved to stay where they’d left him.

Aster started on the last of the stitches. “Well,” he began, “first things first. We’ll probably have to tell North about this before we can go back to the crime scene, just to let them know we need it taped off. I’ll have to pull some paperwork, the usual. Then we can search for a lead, maybe a murder weapon.” A second murder weapon.

Jack seemed to recognize when Aster shifted his focus to business, because he replied just as easily. “You can draw up a standard contract. I can sign this time.”

“No,” Aster said. “No, you’re not a customer. The paperwork is for the precinct, not for you.”

Jack shifted in the chair, looking back over his shoulder at Aster. He looked so wide-eyed, the blue to bright to Aster, and he realized: they put his paintings to shame. For a moment, he almost forgot where they were, what time had passed, and for a moment it was peace again.

“So then what am I?” Jack asked.

Aster swallowed. “You’re mine,” he answered. “And I’m going to protect you.”

He knew it was indulgence that Jack only smiled, turning back around. He knew that Jack probably didn’t need him the same way he did in return. The same way that Aster had gone mad in the past months, how he couldn’t let those images go. He knew, so well how easily Jack could protect himself, and how helpless he was in comparison.

He cut the last of the thread. His free paw reached for the bandages.

“Is that it?” Jack asked.

Aster let his aura pool in his paws, and made sure the linen was clean. A green glow washed over the skin of his pads, coloring the bandages, just for a moment.

“Not just yet,” Aster replied. “But the worst of it is over. You’re going to be alright.”

In the answering quiet, he heard his own heartbeat, and couldn’t for the life of him trace a lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cackles* I can't believe this took me two months, but I'm super proud of it. Please leave a comment below! If you have any questions about this AU, I enjoy leaving cryptic answers. :P


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